Born in 1940 in what is now Pakistan, Saleha Mahmood Abedin is the widow of the late Zyed Abedin, an Indian-born academic who taught at the prestigious King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia during the early 1970s. In 1976 Saleha gave birth to a daughter, Huma Abedin, while she and her husband were living in the United States. The following year, Saleha earned a PhD in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1978, the Abedin family relocated from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This move took place when Abdullah Omar Naseef, then-vice president of Abdulaziz University, recruited Zyed Abedin, who had been his colleague at the University earlier in the decade, to work for the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), a Saudi-based Islamic think tank that Naseef was preparing to launch. Both Zyed and Saleha Abedin would serve as editorial-board members of IMMA's in-house publication, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA). It should be noted that Abdullah Omar Naseef was an Islamic extremist with a significant history of ties to al Qaeda; moreover, he became secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a fundamentalist group with links to Osama bin Laden, in 1983. In the 1990s, Saleha Abedin herself would serve as an official representative of MWL.

After her husband died in 1993, Saleha Abedin became the director of IMMA; today she serves as editor-in-chief of its Journal.

Abedin also directs the Amman, Jordan-based International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), a Muslim World League affiliate that identifies itself as part of the aforementioned IICDR. Abiding by a charter authored by Yusuf al-Qaradawi and several other leading Muslim Brotherhood members, IICWC advocates the implementation of strict Sharia Law and calls for the repeal of Egyptian statutes that currently ban female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape. Because each of these practices find doctrinal support in Sharia, IICWC favors them.

Saleha Abedin is an influential founding member of the Muslim Sisterhood, a pro-Sharia entity composed of the wives of some of the highest-ranking leaders in the Muslim Brotherhood. A report by the Egyptian opposition newspaper Al-Liwa Al-Arabi says that these women are recruited to: “smuggle secret documents”; “spread the Brotherhood’s ideology by infiltrating universities, schools and homes”; “fulfill the interests of the Brotherhood”; and “organiz[e] projects which will penetrate [the Brotherhood's] prohibited ideology into the decision-making in the West ... under the guise of 'general needs of women.'” One particularly noteworthy member of the Sisterhood is Nagla Ali Mahmoud, wife of Mohammed Morsi (the Islamist who was elected president of Egypt in June 2012).

Saleha Abedin is perhaps best-known for her efforts in editing and translating (into English) author Fatima Umar Naseef's 1999 book, Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations, which quotes extensively from the writings of the eminent Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb. Lauding Naseef as “a prominent Saudi scholar,” Abedin describes the book as “a comprehensive study of the rights and obligations of women in society from the Islamic perspective.” Specifically, the book asserts that all Muslim women must wear the hijab, or veil; that Sharia offers women “the only escape” possible from the tyranny of manmade laws that “enslave” them; that female genital mutilation is permissible; that stoning and lashing are appropriate punishments for adultery; that apostates should be executed for abandoning the Muslim faith; that those who kill apostates should not be subject to the death penalty; that women are not only permitted, but obliged, to participate in violent jihad; that social interaction between the sexes is forbidden; that women have no right to abstain from sex with their husbands; that a woman should not let anyone into her family's house unless approved by her husband; and that free speech should not be permitted if it does not “benefit” Islam.

In addition, Abedin is a member of several interfaith organizations, including the Millennium World Peace Summit, the Vienna Round Table for Christian Muslim Dialogue, the Peace Council, the Parliament of World Religions, and the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations. She founded Dar Al-Hekma College (in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), and is a Professor of Sociology at the King Abdulaziz University Women’s College (also in Jeddah).

Saleha Abedin's daughter, Huma Abedin, worked at IMMA for 12 years (1996-2008) and is closely affiliated with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Saleha's other daughter, Heba Abedin (formerly known as “Heba A. Khaled”), worked alongside Huma an assistant editor with JMMA, and continues in that role to this day. And Saleha's son, Hassan Abedin, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and is an associate editor of JMMA.